Flags on a naked elephant

So our Federal politicians spent over half a million dollars on flags last year.

Oop. Sorry not year. Last 6 months.

In the last 6 months of 2014, MPs spent half a million dollars on flags.

According to the AFR, Liberal MP and former Australian tennis hero John Alexander topped the flag spending at $17,949, followed by independent MP Bob Katter on $13,320 and National MP Bruce Scott on $12,236.

Katter said: “I'm utterly ashamed of myself that I was number two. I have a lot of work to do.”

Bless him.

But now Treasury has decided it needs to nip this outrageous patriotism in the bud, and effective this financial year, the flag budget will be limited.

Katter, of course, was outraged. “It shows monumental stupidity and a total lack of Australianness in the government.”

Now I love a good flag as much as the next person. I’ve got one in the office. But 20 grand in six months on flags is a little excessive isn’t?

Apparently the flag budget is there to allow MPs to doll out flags as gifts to worthy individuals and organisations. Gifts. That’s nice. Couldn’t they just send some flowers? Maybe a nice card?

And maybe the flags are being used to build national pride, in which case you could argue that it’s public money well spent. But I doubt it. It sounds to me like just another PR campaign dressed as policy.

Anyway, I’m not going to go on about the stupid things governments spend money on. I’ve only got two blogs a week.

But let me ask you this: How much ownership do you feel over the amount of money our government spends on flags?

I mean, does the will of the government in regards to flags reflect your will?

What about the statement “Aussies spend an excessive amount on flags.” Would you agree with that? I’ve got a statistic that says it’s true…

Chances are you’ve never thought about it, and it’s one of the millions of things that government’s do that the public has no idea about.

And this, in my mind, is one of the big flaws of what we call ‘democracy’. We get one vote every few years, and on the basis of that one expressed preference, a whole suite of policies are implemented. From child-care to the economy to the environment to flag supply.

And the idea is that your representative ‘represents’ you. But there’s 100,000 voters in each electorate. The idea that anyone could represent the diverse interests and values of 100,000 people is ridiculous.

Our parliamentary system is set up to create the illusion of ‘people-power’ while doing absolutely nothing to facilitate it.

(Or maybe I’m just bitter cos no one gave me a flag.)

Anyway, it’s a crap system, but I’m willing to admit, that for now, it’s the best we’ve got.

But now put yourself in the shoes of the average Greek person. After the GFC, they wake up to find that their government had gone and spent a whole bunch of money they didn’t have (mostly on flags and ouzo I think), and now there were a lot of angry German bankers on their doorstep.

And now the Greek people are being told that they have to pay up (give up benefits and sell off public assets) because it was “their” debt and “they” were responsible for it.

(C’mon mate. You’ve had your fun with your flags. Time to pay up.)

And at the same time, everyone’s making holier-than-thou comments about the national character.

Imagine the Kiwis looking down their noses at us and saying, “Oh those Aussies. They partied hard, blew all the money on flags, and now they’re too lazy and irresponsible to do anything about it.”

And if you think it couldn’t happen here, think again. All governments live beyond their means. They can’t help it. The ‘democratic’ contest practically locks it in. The aim of the game is votes, and the easiest way to get votes is to buy them.

And look at us. 20 odd years without recession, a once in a century mining boom, and still we’ve got a ‘budget emergency’ and deficits as far as the eye can see.

Governments, no matter what stripe, will always spend whatever money is available to them.

(Which is why I’m a fan of lower taxes, but that’s another story.)

And this is where Greece got into trouble – because there was simply too much money available to them.

Once they joined the Euro, the banks were happy to lend them way more money than they were good for.

And they were happy to extend the government credit they knew they couldn’t repay, because they knew whatever happened, they’d be sweet. The banks wouldn’t be picking up the bill.

Either Frankfurt and the EU would, or the Greek people would to avoid losing EU membership.

Either way, the banks were sorted. Bonuses for everybody.
(And it was exactly this kind of implicit guarantee that gave us the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US.)

And maybe you could say the people should have stepped in at this point and stopped the government from taking on too much debt, but the books were cooked (thank you Goldman Sachs). No one knew what was going on.

The more I look at it, the more I think the failure here is in the disconnect between the concept of government, and the people they claim to represent.

Big government doesn’t represent anybody. It’s just an expression of well-resourced interests and lobby groups. How do you hold a people accountable for the sins of a government that was only out to screw them over as well?

And this is the elephant in the room in the whole Grexit drama. Democracy, as we know it, is a joke.

The emperor has no clothes.

Anyway, that’s the results of my fact-finding mission. And it seems the EU has found another agreement (at least for now). My work here is done. I’ll be back home later this week.

Comments

Jon its great to have “our” representative at the seat of the beginnings to give us a running commentary of how that whiff of democracy is played out, when push comes to a shove. The power elite always rise up to the top like #@!* in a toilet bowl. While you’ve been on your latte tour over there its been revealed that the immaculate speaker of the House in Canberra has spent $398k on travel in the last year including $5000 on a short helicopter joy flight.

Jon we urgently need you here now the elite pretenders are up to it all over the world.

Unfortunately the whole concept of European monetary union is fatally flawed. Those countries closest to the centre of Europe where the natural resources and the markets are were always going to operate on a different level to the ones on the periphery. So tying everyone to the same currency and the same interest rates was a complete non starter – removing individual governments ability to set monetary policy, amazing! As an ex pom I’m just so grateful that successive UK governments of both persuasions wouldn’t have a bar of it.

Jon, great article once again………..But cant help thinking that you just went over there to see whether or not the Greeks partied hard and fast and generally kicked back…and wanted to join in………just sayin…..

They might have to sell some real estate (in the form of islands). The rich Arabs will pay cash and create safe havens for Muslims (Persians?).
Maybe some enterprising Aussies could buy and lease to the EU for refugee processing, seeing that Australia uses Christmas Island and Nauru facilities for similar purposes.
Why doesn’t Prince Phillip say something intelligent about his country of origin?
The masses have just never learnt enough history so this pervasive ignorance mixed with greed and cynicism will just contribute to more upheavals in the future.

So nice to see that the blood they got out of this stone is being put to such good use.
With regard to Greece and Europe, the whole single currency was always going to be a flawed experiment.
What is grossly unfair is that the banks that happily lent Greece the money and continued to do so knowing full well that repayment was unlikely. Why are these banker’s not suffering for this ridiculous situation.
Greece’s bailout funds went straight to Greece’s creditors, not to Greece or their people. So the bailout funds are going to the very people who caused the problem in the first place!
The biggest mistake Greece’s Prime Minister made was to not have any of the required plans things in place to actually exit the Euro.
Greece doesn’t have a hope in hell of repaying any of their debts. The best thing they can do is to default on their debts, exit the Euro, create their own currency or go back to the Drachma. This currency would be quite devalued against other currencies which would make it attractive for exports and tourists.
It would be very hard for Greeks for the next few years, but then they’d start on the road to an actual recovery, if they manage the process well.
Staying in the Euro is certain death and there will be no recovery for Greece, which will end in an inevitable default eventually.
Greece leaving the Euro will be the catalyst for other countries to follow. Europe actually needs Greece more than Greece needs Europe. They just don’t know it yet.

Thinking about how the EU situation compares to us in Oz… So in the EU there is a single currency, same here in Oz. In the EU there are a lot of different countries with their own governments, yeah similar here except that we have states with their own governments. Each of these governments can borrow money, and each would be responsible for paying it back. Might have to impose some local taxes to do it, and if the local economy is not doing so well there might not be a good quality of living locally. But here in Oz we also have a central government that redistributes the wealth – the local economies that aren’t doing well can get a ‘gift’ of a grant from the Commonwealth Govt. Could that be the main reason that Australia is different? We must do OK – or not – as a nation. Imagine if the states had to be completely self sufficient but with a single currency. Could that work here?
Of course each state is ultimately subject to Commonwealth laws and control – is that what’s missing from the EU model?
Just food for thought…

Jon,
Why does the Greek Government not just bite the bullet? The people spoke in the referendum. In a democracy, the Government should represent the voice of the people.
Grexit is inevitable. The more it is put off, the greater the people’s will suffering. Stop kicking the tin down the road, taking on more debt which goes straight back to pay the bankers whose greed started the whole problem in the first place. They should have had harsh conditions from the outset, not wait until the nation had crippled itself, by borrowing beyond its ability to repay. Their profligate lending was unethical. Now, THEY should pay for their negligence, not the citizens, who had no say in the whole matter.
Greece needs a new start. It will hurt for quite a while, but at least the efforts of the people will be putting money into their own economy instead of into the corrupt banks.

When my daughter went overseas to Costa Rica on a school exchange, she took two flags, (given by our local federal MP) to present to the schools she attended. I thought a worthy action and an OK use of taxpayers funds?
As regards the Greek (Grease) crisis and you want a laugh catch on You Tube https://youtu.be/2jMviz4cymw

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